Horace Binney's Pamphlets [pp. 641-647]

Horace Binney's Pamphlets.
bringing it nearer to common sense and practical efficiency.
The success of the simplified system was fully proved by more
than three years' practice in all the courts of that State, without a single difficulty. The system was found fully adequate
to all the exigencies of justice; while, as a logical discipline for
the student, it was far better than even the old common law
pleading. But commissioners, who had digested the statutes of
the State which assume the existence of the old common law
pleading, found themselves in the dilemma of either making
their work conform to the simplified pleading, which they knew
was their duty, or else so cutting up the simplified pleading as to
enable them to let their work remain as it was, full of obsolete
things. They chose the latter easier alternative, and the legisla-
ture, without knowing it, adopted their work; and the mutilated
pleading now stands an appropriate chapter in a Digest, which
puts lecturers on science, literature, morality, and religion, in
the same category with stud-horses, jackasses, circus-riders,
rope-dancers, and other such characters.* Whether the study
of this code will influence the Maryland Bar for good, we, at
least, have our doubts.
But a still more potent and fearful cause of the demoralization of the Bar, is the change in the tenure of the judicial
office. The judiciary is no longer, as it was of old, independent
by a life tenure in office; but is, upon theory, and avowedly,
made dependent upon the popular will; and is re-eligible, so
that the elective franchise is held in terror over the judges.
The principle upon which our forefathers thought a pure and
enlightened administration of justice dependent, is now repudiated. The administration of justice seems to be drifting
towards Lynch law. The doctrine of a law, higher than decisions of courts, or enactments of legislatures, or even of constitions, is openly proclaimed. When this doctrine shall be the
rule of judges, as it is of some legislators, the abomination of
desolation, as woful as that spoken of by the prophet, will come,
and that quickly.
There never has been a country where the judicial function
was so important, and integrity so necessary to the judge, as
* See pp. 394, 395, vol. i. Maryland Code.
644
[OCTOB.ER